interstellar5555 | Locked in a Room

Oh G-O-D, so much screaming.

Luci's headache spikes as everybody (including Jamie) starts competing to shatter glass. Normally she would laugh at the poor sap suddenly trapped in a decent guy with normal boundaries' worst nightmare, but her head has been pounding since she was told she couldn't perform.

"Fucking hell--" she hisses, finishing pulling her tank top over her head and charging Jamie. Luci grabs him by the back of his shirt and starts directing him out. "Quick, before they find their curling irons and waxing strips."

The woman he'd plowed into hucks a bottle of shampoo at his head as he's hustled out, but it goes wide and smacks off the doorway of the locker room as Jamie exits, still gripped firmly in Luci's hand. At least he's stopped screaming, although now he's babbling a mile a minute, which probably isn't much of an improvement.

"I swear I didn't mean to go in there, I mean I don't know what I was doing but I would never have gone in there on purpose I promise, oh god oh christ what the hell what the hell - "

He freezes up as it suddenly seems to sink in just who's manhandling him, and he looks up at Luci with a stricken, horrified expression. "Oh god," he says, in what can charitably be described as a whimper. "Please don't kill me."

Sometimes, having someone going weak at the knees at the mere sight of her is flattering.

This is not one of those times. It's just aggravating.

"You're lucky I was in there, honestly. I can't remember the last time I was embarrassed." She can't remember the last time she felt like her privacy was being invaded either-- probably a side-effect of being a rockstar. Luci lets go of Jamie's shirt and puts her hand on the small of his back. "This isn't far enough, they'll get dressed and be out to beat you up soon enough. Flashstep boys don't look good in bruises."

"Yeah. I mean no. No we do not." Sad-shoving Maxxie ~~and picking a fight with Terry~~ is one thing, but Jamie doesn't want to get into a fight with a bunch of girls. He's heard they fight dirty.

He lets her continue to shove him along, away from the locker room. At some point he rakes a hand through his hair, trying to calm his nerves. "I know I've been a little - distracted the past couple days, but I didn't think I was that distracted. Seriously."

"We're all fucked up. This lockdown is only making things worse," Luci confirms in a low tone. She herds Jamie back to the elevator and hits the button to call it. She's taking him back to the Flashstep suite. ~~Don't ask how she knows where it is, she just does.~~

"I barely made it out of the suite this morning-- you think it's normal for a Carnie to stay in captivity this long and not go mad?"

Jamie's a little glad to hear that he's not the only one who feels like he's been losing his mind these last few days, though he grimaces a little at that last comment of hers. "Mn. No, I guess probably not."

He risks a sidelong glance at her. "...exactly how mad are you right now?"

Like "maim and kill a teenager and leave his body in an elevator" mad, perchance? Just wondering.

Luci fixes him with a sidelong glance of her own.

"You ever had a headache for three days straight?"

WELL that sounds encouraging. He shifts his weight just barely perceptibly away from her. "Um. No. Can't say that I have."

He tries for levity, because that will surely make everything better. "...unless being on a tour bus with Yosuke counts, in which case yes."

Yeah, she sees that shift, and it makes her smirk. "I'll accept that." She's been around Alec's insufferable attitude in a tour bus before, she knows how it can be.

"It makes you hypersensitive to everything. Light, sound, when they leave their boots on your bed..." The elevator arrives and Luci guides them both inside, and she waits for the doors to shut before continuing. "Reactions are tenfold. I know this sounds difficult to believe, but not being able to perform hasn't made me angry. It's depressed the fuck out of me. The headache has only amplified it, made me feel insane for not being able to get out of bed."

Jamie gazes up at her, a little bewildered that she's being this forthcoming with someone she barely knows. She really doesn't know how to be embarrassed, he guesses, and there's something about that that Jamie envies a little.

"I was kinda mad at first, but now it's like...I dunno. Like I just can't think." He doesn't really know how to explain that feeling of expectancy that's settled around him the past couple of days, the creeping suspicion that something is changing, in him or around him or both. So he keeps that to himself, for now.

"Why do you think they're keeping us cooped up like this?" he asks, leaning back against the elevator wall; and then, as though it's just occurred to him that Luci's prodded him into the elevator and pressed the call button, adds: "Wait, where are we going?"

"Your suite-- it's the safest place for you right now." Luci looks back at him, smirking. "Come with me if you want to live."

She folds her arms and leans against the wall as the elevator rises. "Honestly, if you're tripping out enough to walk into a women's locker room, it makes me feel a whole lot better about how I'm doing. If there's a reason they're keeping us here, hopefully it's not to induce mass insanity. Because that seems to be a pretty prominent side-effect at the moment." But that's apparently all she's going to say about it, because in the next moment she's changing the subject:

"How's the single coming for the EP?"

Edited 2015-11-09 03:53 (UTC)

Jamie ducks his head, flustered. He's a lot more easily thrown these past few days, too, which he finds both distressing and irritating. He's just as glad when she shifts gears to the Vengeance Album(TM), and relaxes considerably.

"Pretty good, I think." He finds it easier to meet her gaze when they're talking business. Almost like peers. "It still needs some tweaking, but it's coming together pretty well."

He sets his jaw and draws himself up to his full height. "We're gonna put everything we've got into this. We're not gonna fuck it up, I promise."

Luci understands why most bands walk on eggshells around the Carnies given their reputation-- but she's a little surprised when Jamie starts talking to her as though she were the top of the food chain in this endeavor. She huffs a surprised laugh. "You should make that promise to everyone else, too. I'm not the one handing out grades here, we're only strong if all of us give everything we have. Glad I don't have to worry about Flashstep being our weakest link, though," she says with a smirk.

That wording, or possibly the smirk, seems to trigger something in Jamie, some deeply-rooted insecurity that he's been harboring for apparently a very long time. His expression shifts, almost darkens; he doesn't look resentful or angry, just...strangely, intensely determined. Challenged. It's a look that almost seems a little too intense for their current discussion, as does his tone, but there's no question that this line of conversation means more to him than a single song on a single album, even an album as emotionally-charged as the joint EP.

"We won't be." He says it completely calmly, deadly serious. "I'll make sure everyone knows that."

Luci sees that shift, and it gives her pause. She stares at him, curious for a moment, until the elevator arrives at his floor. That seems to jar her enough to actually speak again.

"You know, Alec gives you guys shit about being a boyband all the time, but I think there's more to all of you than synchronized dance routines and close harmony if you all can give me scary looks like that."

And just as swiftly as it appeared, it's gone again - perhaps startled back into hiding by the elevator gliding to a stop. Out of habit, Jamie glances toward the doors as they slide open, and when he looks back to Luci again, he's struck by his own temerity and ducks his head again, submissively.

"Sorry! Sorry. Wasn't mad at you, or anything. Just - " He tries to collect himself by stepping out of the elevator, and manages to meet Luci's eye again, sans scary look. "You can count on us. All of you guys. We'll do our part." He looks about to say something else, but then presses his lips together into a tight smile and nods.

Luci laughs as she exits the elevator with Jamie. "I guess you all have your reputation to uphold, but I'll give you my unsolicited opinion: never fucking apologize for your expressions or how you feel. In some cases, that's the only real thing we have in this line of work."

She puts her hands in her pockets and looks at him, amused. "What would you say to a flashmob performance? You think I could count on you guys for that?"

Jamie considers that bit of advice, turns it around in his head and tucks it away for safekeeping, offering a cautious bob of his head. When she brings up the flashmob, he brightens, a slow smile spreading across his face as he considers the possibilities.

He really wants to make some kind of witty pun - "Flash is in our name", or something along those lines - but he can't really think of anything clever and the last thing he needs right now is to look like a huge dork in front of Lucifer. Well, more of a huge dork, anyway, considering where they'd just met. So instead he just nods, much more assuredly this time.

"I'd have to check with the other guys, but it sounds like a great idea to me. I think they'll wanna go for it." ~~And if they don't, he'll sadly shove them until they do.~~

Locked in a Room

Hi Jamie 8]

hi naked Lucifer

You say that like half of Pride hasn't seen it before

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